Note 354 — 1800
Reading edition
All doubt as to these fragments being originally intended to form part of Michael is set at rest by a letter from Wordsworth to Thomas Poole, of Nether Stowey, written from Grasmere on the 9th of April 1801, in which he gives first some new lines to be added to Michael, at pp. 210 and 211 of vol. ii. of the “Lyrical Ballads” (ed. 1800); to which letter Dorothy Wordsworth added the postscript, “My brother has written the following lines, to be inserted page 206, after the ninth line—
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies;”
and then follow—
Though in these occupations they would pass Whole hours, etc.
as printed above.
Dorothy Wordsworth adds, “Tell whether you think the insertion of these lines an improvement.”—Ed.